


like you're always stuck in second-gear

by fiercynn



Category: Teen Wolf (TV) RPF
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:06:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiercynn/pseuds/fiercynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not that Tyler is <em>jealous</em>, exactly; he just doesn’t think the whole Sterek thing makes a lot of sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like you're always stuck in second-gear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liliaeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliaeth/gifts).



> Set in some nebulous time where the first season has aired and they're filming the second season, but the rest of the season 2 cast aren't actually there yet? Umm, just go with it. Title from "I'll Be There For You (Theme From Friends)" by the Rembrandts, because of [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yx3s6595VM) where the cast divulges which Friends character each of them would be. (In case you're wondering, Posey is Joey.) 
> 
> Thanks as always to scribe, my wonderful, life-saving beta!

It’s not that Tyler is _jealous_ , exactly; he just doesn’t think the whole Sterek thing makes a lot of sense. After all, Derek and Stiles barely have any scenes together – and when they do they mostly seem to hate each other, sniping and threatening, sometimes even with real bodily harm involved. 

At least, that’s how it reads on paper, whenever Tyler takes a peek at Dylan’s lines for his scenes with Hoechlin. But even Tyler has to admit that somewhere in the translation from script to screen, the two of them create a kind of chemistry together that is almost palpable. It shouldn’t be too surprising, really: Dylan is one of the most talented actors that Tyler has ever met, and Hoechlin’s not too shabby himself, plus when he’s playing Derek he has that smoldering intensity that would make anyone’s knees weak.

…okay, so maybe Tyler is a little jealous. 

*

“I’m not against it, I just don’t get it,” he says to Hoechlin while they're in special effects makeup. “Like, wouldn’t Derek and Scott work better? The show is pretty much about how obsessed Derek is with Scott anyway. Right?”

Hoechlin shoots him a sideways glance – and Tyler is expecting a grin and a joke, a _what, are you jealous of the attention?_ – which would probably be okay, because Tyler could truthfully say no to the “attention” part. But all Hoechlin says is, “Yeah, I completely agree. It’s really kind of bizarre.”

Tyler blinks at him, surprised, and feeling sort of a little bit hopeful, until Hoechlin goes and ruins it by saying, “Or maybe Jackson – he’s pretty fixated on Scott too. I mean, you and Colton in that scene in the cafeteria? I saw that final cut of that, and, man.” Hoechlin waggles his eyebrows, which looks even more ridiculous considering that his face is all already wolfy, and Tyler cracks up so hard that everyone in makeup scolds them both for the next ten minutes.

*

“I mean,” says Tyler, “it’s not that I don’t think people should be obsessed with us too – Scott and Allison are clearly the most important relationship in the show.”

Crystal gives him a kind of pitying, _I’m-basically-your-big-sister-and-therefore-wise-about-the-world_ look, which should be annoying, except that she’s also letting him lie with his head in her lap, and she’s running her fingers through his hair in a way that feels really, _really_ good, so he sort of just closes his eyes in contentment for a moment. “But?” she prompts eventually.

“But,” says Tyler, opening his eyes with a sigh, “don’t I get to have subtext with anyone too? Even you have a thing with Holland that people are into.”

(By the end of season 2 he’ll regret saying this, except also not because he loves Dan and acting with him is pretty great– it’s just that Scisaac sounds _so weird_ when people say it aloud.)

Crystal ignores the “even you” part, which is very nice of her, and just says, “You’re already the main character. Don’t you think you get enough attention as it is?”

“It’s not about the attention,” Tyler protests, because he’s pretty much incapable of lying to Crystal.

“I know, hon, I know,” she says, patting his head indulgently, but she lets him stay there for another twenty minutes, at least. 

*

“It’s not, you know, you don’t think it’s _real_ or anything, do you?”

“Sterek? Oh yeah, it’s real,” says Holland.

Tyler gapes at her over his chow-mein. “What?”

“It’s definitely real,” she says, nodding.

“But Jeff says he didn’t put it in on purpose. You know he didn’t!” says Tyler, throwing his hands up, because, seriously, _what?_

Holland shakes her head. “Doesn’t really matter, especially when the subversion of authorial intent leads to anti-kyriarchal readings of a text. Queer undertones are so often suppressed – in fiction and real life – that it can be a form of resistance to bring attention to them.”

Tyler has no idea what any of that means, but it probably serves him right for asking Holland, who’s both a Women’s Studies major and way, _way_ smarter than him. “And that makes it real how?”

“It’s real because people read it as real,” she says, patient, “and in fiction that’s all that matters.”

“Okay,” says Tyler, “thanks,” and Holland beams at him and goes back to her lunch as if she doesn’t know that she’s been completely unhelpful in answering his actual question. Which, all right, she probably doesn’t know. Shit.

*

He’s more specific when he asks Colton – which is potentially very compromising, but he’s running out of people to talk to at this point.

Luckily, Colton doesn’t seem to care too much, keeping his eyes on the screen. “What, O’Brien doesn’t tell you those things when you two have sleepovers and paint each other’s nails?”

Tyler doesn’t have a good answer for this yet – that is, the _why-he-hasn’t-asked-Dylan_ part, not the nail-painting, which they only did once (okay, twice) - so he just says, “No.”

Colton shrugs, obviously skeptical, but he continues anyway. “Okay, well, I think probably not. That’s like saying you and Crystal have real sexual tension, or me and Holland.”

“But we do!” Tyler knows this to be true, because at this point they’ve all gotten drunk enough together to talk about how in an alternate universe they would all do each other. It’s an important thing to establish, just like figuring out which Friends character each of them would be. (Hoechlin would be Richard. Man, would Hoechlin be Richard.)

“Okay, sexual tension that means something more significant than the fact that we’re all really, really, really ridiculously good-looking,” says Colton, less because he has a big ego and more because he loves _Zoolander_. “Art doesn’t always imitate life, dude. Especially not subtextual messages that weren’t even explicitly written into the show.”

The thing is, Tyler thinks that the fact it wasn’t intentional makes it all the more damning, at least on the acting side. But he’s not exactly going to say that aloud.

“I do totally hate you though, that part of Jackson is real,” Colton adds, and Tyler throws his controller at him, since he’s already totally losing Mario Kart (and his _mind)_ anyway.

*

It finally comes down to asking Dylan, which Tyler realizes is where this was heading all along. 

“Okay, T, seriously, what’s up?” says Dylan, actually concerned, when Tyler’s been trying to get the words out for at least ten minutes. “Are you okay?”

“No! I mean, yeah, I’m fine, I just. I don’t know how to ask this.”

Dylan looks confused, which is entirely fair, because Dylan is his best friend ever, and Tyler’s never had difficulty talking to him before. “It’s just me, man. You know I’m not going to get mad, no matter what you say.”

But that’s not the problem, and Tyler knows it. The problem _is_ that Dylan is his best friend, and if he does turn out to be madly in love with Hoechlin, then Tyler is going to have to hug him and scheme to get them together and be happy for them when they actually do. And he _would_ be happy for them, is the thing, but it would also suck, and Tyler doesn’t know how to say that without it coming out all wrong.

Fortunately, Dylan is a mind-reader, and takes the matter out of Tyler’s hands. “Is this about your thing for Hoechlin?” 

Tyler stares at him. “You _know?_ ”

“Well, yeah, dude, what kind of best friend would I be if I didn’t? I’m pretty sure I knew before you did,” says Dylan, which is actually probably true. “Plus, it’s obvious. His Friends character is Richard. I almost have a thing for him.”

“Almost?” says Tyler, trying not to sound too pathetic.

Dylan’s eyes widen. “Is that what this is about? Oh my god, Tyler, I promise I’m not into your future-boyfriend! Seriously!”

“Even if most of our fans think you are?” says Tyler, studiously ignoring how _future-boyfriend_ makes his heart sort of speed up.

“I mean, he’s Hoechlin, so sometimes I do get distracted staring at his abs – or into his dark brown eyes – or at his perfect stubble –” Tyler must look particularly despairing because Dylan stops and looks at him. Then he slings an arm over Tyler’s shoulder and grins, wide open and honest. “But, no. He’s possibly the most attractive man I’ve ever met, but no.”

Tyler leans his head on Dylan’s shoulder, so fucking relieved he could cry. “He really is, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. So now the question is, T, how are you going to get your man?” 

And there goes the relief, just like that, because the answer is that Tyler has absolutely no clue.

*

Of course, the thing about being in love with a guy who is pretty much a perfect human being means that once again, the matter is taken out of Tyler’s hands. 

“So,” says Hoechlin when Tyler answers the door, stepping into his trailer as if it belongs to him, “I hear you are against Sterek after all.”

Tyler, being Tyler, promptly panics. “What? Who told you that? Was it Dylan? It was, wasn’t it? I’m going to kill him!”

“Dylan didn’t tell me anything,” says Hoechlin, raising his eyebrows. “The rest of the cast, on the other hand…”

“Ugh,” says Tyler, burying his face in his hands, “Now I have to kill everyone.”

“Posey, you’re completely ridiculous,” says Hoechlin, smile evident in his voice – but somehow the words go sour in Tyler’s ears. Because yeah, everyone else makes fun of him, even for this, but it actually hurts coming from Hoechlin – and it’s somehow worse that he’s acting fond of Tyler at the same time, because that means he’s not even taking it _seriously_.

“I’m not,” he glares up at Hoechlin, knowing he sounds petulant.

“Yes, you are,” Hoechlin insists, “because it’s your own fault it happened this way, for talking to all of them when you could have been talking to me. Also the fact that your name is Tyler is ridiculous, but I guess that’s not really your fault.”

Tyler frowns. “What?”

“I just never thought I’d be in a Paris Hilton situation – but I did once date someone who had the same name as my dog, which was probably more awkward than dating someone with my own name,” continues Hoechlin, considering. 

Tyler just stands there, knowing that his mouth is actually hanging open, even though that kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen in real life, but – did Hoechlin actually say - 

“Oh, fuck it,” says Hoechlin, and leans forward to kiss the living daylights out of him. 

“Anyway,” he continues quite a while later, after Tyler’s discovered that Hoechlin’s stubble is not only perfect in how it looks, and also that Hoechlin is an _astonishingly_ good kisser, “you probably shouldn’t kill our friends, because not only were they actually helpful, but we wouldn’t be able to do the show without them.”

“Hey, we could totally do the show by ourselves,” Tyler argues, even though he secretly agrees. His friends are _awesome_. “We could have Derek as Scott’s actual love interest, squash the Sterek thing once and for all.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Hoechlin, teasing, “I’m kind of into the Sterek thing,” and Tyler has to hit him over the head before he kisses him again.


End file.
